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Holiday mingle log

It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year

Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year, which isn't a surprise but hey they're starting the Christmas/Winter stuff the week before thanksgiving. Because why not. this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drink.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

Fun and frivolity.

There are even carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

So you want some summer?.

While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Oh yeah, and there's definitely the baths and everything too!

Network.

In the Sphere, the network is neural, and accessed via touching the glowing golden circle behind your character’s ear. They can identify themselves with a screen name if you so desire, but messages should be one of three ways or a combination of them. 1. Audio. Your character thinks audible words onto the network. 2. Writing: Your character thinks text into the network. 3. Video. Your character projects a broadcast of a video of themselves onto the network. Replies are determined by the player.

The network needs to be accessed by choice, so character broadcasts are not automatically beamed directly into people’s heads. The Sphere isn’t that rude.

Private messages are allowed by pressing and holding and pressing and holding again as you picture the person in your mind. This can be an image or a name, err more on the side of things being more accessible than less.

Welcome to my nightmare.

For anyone within the architecture dome, the library dome, the sunlight rec dome and any personal dome that people chose, around midnight people will have a curiously tired sensation. They just need to rest their eyes for a moment, or some may fall asleep for longer. No matter the length of time that the character is out, the nightmare infects them, and when they wake they will be filled with a curious but urgent sensation.

They have lost something. The loss can be a physical object, an emotion, a memory, a person or perhaps a sense of self. If the lost person is currently present in the game, they will be unable to be seen by the character who is experiencing the waking nightmare. Urgency will grip the character, because the longer the sensation goes on for, the worse it becomes. Characters can search and scrounge for their loss everywhere, but until the nightmare is over, they will not find whatever it is. Even if it is themselves. Instead, they may be frantic, angry, or just play old scared to death. They need to find this at whatever cost. Where they may find it is something that their own brains will settle on, but of course until the nightmare is over, they will not be able to.

The nightmare ends with either the character falling into a normal, restful sleep naturally or through some other means (someone might mention the infirmary has sedation medication just for the is purpose, or that there’s always a brick) or when they are woken with the intervention of someone else. The intervention of someone else is entirely up to you, and can come from a player character or a NPC, depending on how the player is feeling with the thread. By intervention we mean someone who is able to talk the person out of the nightmare, or to slap or shake them out, or to use some sort of trick that shows them that they are indeed inside of a nightmare. The knowledge that someone is affected by a nightmare must come from an external source, and should come from a character that your character would trust. After all, would you believe someone who told you that you were in a nightmare if you didn’t know that? That said, the best way to deal with waking someone is to remove them from the affected domes. Too bad you don’t know which domes are affected.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She can feel the animosity coming from the girl, automatically standing straighter in response. After the trials of Meereen and even Viserys' anger, this was hardly a comparison. Instead, it struck her as simply odd. She couldn't remember meeting this person before and unless those were her children, what did she have to be so angry about? They were all strangers here, it seemed.

"Perhaps not, but the response is instinctual. I do not know this world or its people. Such things take time." Long, long stretches of time. "Have I offended you somehow?"

This catches her off guard. She didn't recognize her. She was sure she would have- unless, like Jon, she was from a different time, before they had met yet.

It was cruel to hate someone for something they hadn't done yet. That they could change still. But that was a thought for another time. Right now, she had to be sure.

"You don't recognize me, your grace? I am Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North."

"I-" she broke off, so much information coming at her at once. 'Queen in the North'? The last she had heard of the North, it had risen up against the Lannisters with Robb Stark as king. After, there had been the House of the Undying, Qarth and Meereen, Jorah's betrayal and her marriage to Hizdar. So many different matters that pushed out much of the politics of Westeros. All she could do was stare in confusion, feeling like the fool she most likely resembled now.

"I am afraid I don't." There was of course the issue about how to refer to this woman, calling herself Queen of the North. Viserys would have lost his temper, brought fire and blood to such things, but it seemed rude and she was hardly in a place where she could assert such things...nor had the stomach to currently. Let me be queen of one stable region before I think of the other. "Your grace." She bowed her head respectively, as she would to any other fellow monarch she met. "I have never been to Westeros, only during my birth."

Edited 2019-12-21 03:58 (UTC)

"I see." She inclines her head. So strange. So she truly had not come to Westeros yet. Like Jon, from another time. "Then I believe we are from different times, your grace. I have met you before, you see, when you return to Westeros." amidst fire and blood.

"Westeros?" The idea had been present in her mind, but the state of Meereen had made such plans impossible. Even now, she couldn't sort in her mind with the war she was facing, The Sons of the Harpy and the various suitors. "I had planned to sail for Westeros, but...how is this possible? I have no memory of this."

"You must be from before your journey." Simple as that. "There are others here, my brother Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy. They arrived from times I had lived through and remembered. It must be the same for you."

Which meant it was really unfair of her to hate her. She hadn't done anything terrible yet, didn't know what she would do. To do so would make her no better than Cersei, who seemed to have vowed to hate all of her son's suitors before she ever met them. And perhaps she could change things. Fix the world so there was less bloodshed, more peace.

They were not at war here.

Least she forget who had won the game of thrones.

The names meant nothing to her, only Houses that she had heard of from the books Ser Jorah had given her. Viserys had spoken at length about the Starks, but she didn't want to think of his opinion. He had neglected to reveal the truth of what their father was and Ser Barristan had been forced to break her naivety. She wouldn't be quick to rely on Viserys's stories.

"It must be from much further in my future. I am settled in Meereen, acting as their queen." Married, she thought bitterly. "I have no wish to leave my people when the slavers are currently assaulting the city." Though...she couldn't deny that her recent experience in the Dothraki Sea hadn't changed her. Dragons plant no trees. Hearing those words now, they didn't have the same affect as when she was lost in the waste.

"Without the help of any of the House and few ships, it wouldn't be wise."

"Yes, Meereen." She didn't know the woman's whole story, where she went, what she did. She'd never really cared to ask, she knew she was a tyrant and a conquerer.

Who, it appeared, cared for those she conquered. Curious. Did she only exert cruelty before she claimed them as her own? She would tread carefully.

"No, it wouldn't." The girl had dragons at her disposal, and she didn't readily use them. Who was she?

She sighed, well aware why it was others might have heard of the city. "It seemed to be becoming more stable, but the slave masters of Yunkaii and Astapor have banded together and Qarth has joined them, not wishing to lose their most lucrative trade." It was enough to turn her stomach. "With more time and perhaps some luck in his war, I think that there may be safety in the end."

But she was babbling, longing for someone who understood. Smiling at the young woman, who still seemed a bit cold, she did her best to reach out. "You certainly must understand as a queen? Creating stability is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of ruling. The North is fortunate to have long ago weeded out slavery."

And the punishment for it was quite severe. Once again, she thought of Jorah.

It is.

[and someone had threatened that stability with her dragons and hordes.] the wars have been hard on the North and we’ve much to make up for. But we’ll accomplish it, of that I have no doubt.

I’m sorry for your struggles in Meereen. It’s noble to take arms against slavers. [so she’ll give her credit for that]

[She doesn't really want praise for her actions and decisions. No queen was without blood on her hand, and however much she believed in this cause, she still had moments of disquiet and doubt.]

I know what it is to feel that collar.

[Sansa frowns at this. She supposed she had too, chained to Ramsay and locked within the walls of her family home. She knew what a cage felt like.]

Do you? I’m sorry to hear that. No one should suffer in such ways.

I believe so as well.

I know little of your family, but I understand that you have suffered too. It's unfortunate.

We have. Only four of us remain, more than half of us slaughtered by our enemies. But the Pack survives.

Your House is quite resilient. It has survived so many years, it seems unlikely that the Lannisters could ever bring it down.

They tried, make no mistake. I only wish I’d been able to see Cersei die.

I feel the same for Robert Baratheon. I wish I could have seen it.

He was gored by a bore. I did not see it, but my father did. It was a slow death.